Document Actions

Ceres News Feed

As we headed to the polls, the economy, the environment, and our collective common sense told us the old ways are not working. The stumbling financial markets show the consequences of unfettered pursuit of profits in a system that has no debits on the ledger for environmental degradation and no credits for a social conscience. The troubled climate is bringing home the cost of fouling the air and abusing fragile ecosystems. And inequitable use of resources is widening the gap between rich and poor.

This week, we talk with Jeff Connelly, VP of General Electric’s Global Supply Chain and Water and Process Technologies Division, about the technological solutions being implemented in order to conserve and recycle the earth’s most valuable resource - water.

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Ceres, a U.S. coalition of environmental and investor groups, today called for submissions to the seventh-annual Ceres-ACCA North American Awards for Sustainability Reporting.

The New York City Bar Association's Environmental Law Committee Environmental Law Interview with Ceres staffer Anne Kelly, Director of Ceres Corporate Governance Program about the investors behind their petition requesting that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) require companies to disclose risks to their businesses from climate change.

Ceres recently caught up with Van Jones, President of Green for All and director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, to discuss how new technology and energy solutions to the climate crisis can also help solve urban poverty, unemployment, and inequality in America's workforce.

June 12, 2008 – A broad coalition of investors and major environmental groups today repeated their call to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to address the obligations of publicly-traded companies to assess and fully disclose the material economic opportunities and risks from climate change. The 20 signatories to the letter include leading U.S. and European institutional investors such as CalPERS, CalSTRS, F&C Asset Management and the Maryland, New York, New York City, New Jersey, North Carolina and Oregon public pension funds.

June 2008 - Ceres Sustainability Report enables our organization to “walk the talk” and serve as a model for other 501 (c) (3) non-profit organizations and small businesses looking to improve their own transparency—illustrating that reporting can be a beneficial process for any organization, regardless of size or type. The process of evaluating our own organization’s infrastructure drives the Ceres staff to improve our own performance and enables us to engage with stakeholders more effectively and from a position of understanding and experience. This is Ceres' fourth sustainability report that details our operations and key impact areas for 2006.

Lance Lindblom, President of the Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) and a leader in the SRI movement, talks to Ceres about how NCF leverages their $500 million foundation endowment to improve corporate accountability.

May 2008 - The 2008 Benchmarking report is the sixth collaborative effort highlighting environmental performance and progress in the nation’s electric power sector. The Benchmarking series began in 1997 and uses publicly reported data to compare the emissions performance of the 100 largest power producers in the United States. The current report is based on 2006 generation and emissions data.

On February 14, 2008, investors representing over $22 trillion joined Ceres and the United Nations Foundation at the UN Headquarters in New York City to discuss the physical and financial risks of climate change and the opportunities and solutions to mitigate that risk. Presenters included Harvard University's John Holdren, Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla, Ceres president Mindy Lubber, United Nations Foundation president Timothy Wirth.

Ford Motor Company and The Timberland Company received the top sustainability reporting awards today in an international competition organized by the Boston-based Ceres coalition and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). The winners, selected from 87 nominations, also included Calgary, Alberta-based Suncor Energy and Austin, TX-based Dell, Inc. The four winners were announced at the Ceres annual conference today at Boston’s Renaissance Harbor Hotel.

Ceres and Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”) today announced the inaugural winners of the Joan Bavaria Awards for Building Sustainability into the Capital Markets. The two winners were announced at the Ceres annual conference in Boston.

April 2008 - This year, the sustainability reports submitted to the awards were also analyzed against the Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure, a multi-stakeholder disclosure standard developed through a partnership of 14 leading investors, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Carbon Disclosure Project.

April 2008 - To consider the scale and urgency of the climate challenge and how investors can advance solutions, Ceres, the United Nations Foundation, and the UN Fund for International Partnerships co-hosted the third Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations on February 14, 2008. More than 450 investors, representing over $22 trillion in assets, participated in the Summit.

April 2008 - The next 50 years will require a massive shift to cleaner energy sources and technologies to avoid unmanageable climate disruption. This toolkit is designed to help investors begin to comprehensively address climate risks and opportunities in four key areas: internal statements, policies, and governance; engagement with companies, investors, and others; investment practices; public policy support.

April 2008 - This report is the fourth by Ceres examining the mutual fund industry’s proxy voting practices on climate change shareholder resolutions. This new analysis of the voting records of 1,285 mutual funds from 62 leading mutual fund firms indicates that the industry’s previously icy attitude on climate resolutions is beginning to thaw, and that many on Wall Street are starting to realize the financial risks and opportunities from climate change.

This week we're joined by Bill Page, VP of Environmental, Social and Governance Investments at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), to talk about the emerging cleantech market and SSGA's Global Environment Opportunity Strategy (GEOS).

February 2008 - This report reviews the substantial progress that investors have made toward the objectives in the 2005 INCR Action Plan, including clean technology investments, shareholder resolutions, development of the Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure and successful engagement with Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

February 2008 - The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC, Europe), Ceres, which directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR, US), and the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC, Australia and New Zealand) have collaborated to develop a reporting framework which defines investors’ climate change-related disclosure expectations for electric utilities and power generators, specifically those involved in power generation.